Straight from the Bottle : pregnancy

If You Consider Hal Farting in my Face a Push Present

GirlsGoneChild — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:55:00 GMT

Everybody seems to be talking about "push presents" these days. And by everybody I mean, everyone who is pregnant, which I mean... is it just me or is everybody pregnant? The other day I counted three pregnant people out of the five people in line at Starbucks and two of us had new babies. AND the barista's SISTER was in LABOR, apparently because she proclaimed it to the heavens as all us of pregnant/new moms cheered and cried and did kegels.

I didn't even know what a "push present" was until a few months ago.

"Is Hal getting you one?" my friend Jasmine asked me when I was pregnant and she was pregnant. (See? EVERYBODY is pregnant, yo. Everybody.)

"Uh... What's a push present?"

She explained to me that a push present was a gift a man gives his lady friend after delivering their baby.

"You mean a "push the baby out of my vagina" present? Cool! I like the sound of that... I've been coveting these boots and this bag and YEAH PUSH PRESENT! HOOK ME UP!"

I promptly came home and emailed Hal the links to my "push present wish list" to which he responded, "what the eff is this?"

"It's for my push present, Hal. Duh."

"We have no money, Bec. Duh."

"Whatever. You're such a pessimist." I wrote back, annoyed to the max.

And then I got to thinking about the whole Hallmarkesque idea that men oughtta hook their ladies up with "presents" as if pregnancy was something we do FOR our husbands. I mean, honestly, does giving birth warrant a medal? A new bag? A watch? A #1 Mom pendant from Zales? What are we? Pussies? What happened to the baby as present philosophy? I mean... think about it! Sure we have to suffer through pregnancy for nine-months and we'll likely never fit into our 28 waist jeans again but Hi! WE GET A HUMAN PERSON at the end of the nine months. It's kind of a good deal. I mean the purse is cute and all but...

...Of course, I can't tell if I'm coming from a place of wisdom or jealousy. You'll just have to tell me.

***

The Twenty-Two Hour Nap

GirlsGoneChild — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:38:00 GMT

Uh... So... Yeah. I just slept twenty-two of twenty-four hours. I wish I were lying.

It all started when I accidentally slept until 1pm. I tried to have a day but, man, that plan backfired after passing out in front of full frontal fashion an hour later, dragging myself back into bed and waking up again at 7pm for a nice hour before going all narcoleptic on myself.

Archer says: wake-up and play with me, Mommy!

I wonder how people do this without help. Be pregnant, work, take care of a kid. I have a newfound respect for every woman who can fight the urge not to sleep for twenty-two of twenty-four hours. I obviously don't have it in me at all. Which is going to prove interesting next month when I hit the road for two and a half weeks of coastal driving (San Fran to Vancouver) all by myself. I have no idea how or why I thought I could pull off a pregnancy during a book tour/promotion but I wasn't thinking with my real brain. My fake brain, yes. I suppose I was just expecting the same no-nonsense pregnancy I had with Archer. Ha! Yeah, right! Not even close! Hence the twenty-two hour nap and me being totally out of commission during a time I kind of have to be on my game.

I'm not on my game. I'm gameless, people. Totally minus game.

My goal for today was to stay up an entire day without crashing out on my face. It's 2:43 in the pm and I'm still going strong. I think I'm safe so long as I steer clear of couches, beds and/or any comfortable places/locations. Today's goal is to make it to dinner. As in "eating dinner" because lordy knows cooking dinner is pretty much out of the question.

I'm extremely lucky that I work from home or else I would probably have to go all Clockwork Orange on dat ass.

Seriously, ladies? How the hell do you work/parent/work and parent while being pregnant? Do you have any tips for a pathetic unable-to-do-much-of-anything ladyperson like me? This is just a first trimester thing, right? (I realize I should know the answer to that, being that I've been pregnant before, but I honestly don't have the energy to remember what is typical behavior for each trimester.)

Okay so now it's 2:53 and OH MY GOD. Would it be cheating to take a one-hour power nap? Just an hour I swear! I knew it was a bad idea sitting in a chair to write this post. I should have written this standing up.

***

The Girl Who Cried "Pregnant!"

GirlsGoneChild — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 06:13:00 GMT

"Do I seem pregnant to you?" I asked this afternoon.

I also asked the same question this morning, this evening and about 65 other times in the last twenty-four hours. I feel like a total idiot admitting this but not not trying to get pregnant is turning me into a preganoid weirdball. On Superbowl Sunday I took one sip of beer and "OH GOD! What if I'm pregnant. No! I can't! I shouldn't!"

Because what if I'm pregnant, you know? Of course, there's a good chance, I'm not. We're not really doing anything trying-to-get-pregnant people are doing. No post coital handstands or rocking my ass above my head, Big Lebowski style. No testing my ovulation. No all-day marathon sex. Just the occasional boot-knock-sesh and "goodnight!"

Except for some reason, I have become the girl who cried PREGNANT, assuming that I must be pregnant at all times, even though I have a good week before I would even think to take a test.

"But my tits are HUGE!"

(Plth.) "Sorry! I'm so gassy right now."

"I feel nauseous! Wait... Never mind. Actually! Wait! Yes, I feel sick, again! I swear!"

"Did you get that baby name list email I sent you yesterday. To me choice #1 is a no-brainer. But in the case of twins, perhaps we should have two choices for each sex, doncha think?"

"No. I'm not eating that. I have no appetite for anything leafy right now. But I will have another jar of green-olives..."

"I'm exhausted..." Yawn. "Early to bed for me!"

"I hate you!" Wahhhhh "Oh my God, I'm so hormonal"

These and about a thousand other annoying sound bites have come out of my mouth in the last two weeks. I've become totally delusional. I even stopped drinking my usual double-helping of cafe con (soy) leche in the mornings because I'm convinced my body is saying "No! There's a baby in there! Fill it only with organic non-controversial items!

Uh... maybe. But seriously, can I just shut the hell up and behave like a normal person? After all I'm supposed to be all laid-back-whatever about this whole getting-knocked-up (maybe) thing.

Except, for some reason...

Aw, I think I just felt the baby kicking!

(Oh, for chrisskaes, I'm hopeless.)

***

I Know What We'll Do Next Summer

GirlsGoneChild — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:45:00 GMT

Okay so about the whole second baby thing. We're kind of nowhere near ready. Then again, we weren't even close to being even a tiny bit next to nowhere near ready with Archer so maybe that doesn't matter so much.

That being said, we've decided after months and a cazillion hours of contemplation that next summer seems like a good time to remove the contraceptive and Whoop! There it is! ... Or if you will/ in the words of today's TTC** couples: we're going to "try"...

Archer turns three next May, so if all goes as "planned" Archer and #2 will be four years apart, which seems like a really big gap to me but there's no way in H-E-Double Hockey Sticks we can get me pregs any sooner. I would be a walking disaster-zone with all that's going on. Shit, I'm a walking disaster-zone, anyway.

(Archer as an only child.)

I've been weighing the pros and cons against my own childhood: my brother, David and I are 2.5 years apart and it was awesome for us as kids. We were BFF for years and even though we had a love-slump in High School we're OMG totally BFF! again, now that we're adult-ish people. My sister, Rachel and I have seven years between us which is a lot. And it kind of sucks because I never really got to know her like I wish I did. I moved out when she was eleven. There was very little borrowing of clothes or bonding over boys. And that would have been nice. To have that. I want Archer to have that. I want him to have a built-in BFF or at the very least, someone to bounce ideas off. Someone to talk shit about Hal and I with when we're acting lame and annoying and "Gosh! Our parents are such tools!"

That's important. To have that.

(Archer with "Emily," a doll we picked up at Rite Aid so we could sample life as a family of four. We're weird.)

Of course, I'm totally torn between wanting Archer to have a sibling close-ish in age and being waaaaay overwhelmed by the thought of having another kid. Twenty-seven with two kids seems insane to me. And then there's the whole possibility of having twins, which run like water in my family. Triplets, too. Oy to the Vey. We'd likely have to move, pretty soon-after which means automatic $1,000 more in rent. At least. And I'd need to hire part-time help, most likely. And, yeah...

Honestly? I have no idea how people plan kids. This shit is hard and totally confusing.

But then Archer does something like offer his rice cakes to his friend, or light up when he meets a new child and I think to myself, "fuck it, let's just do this. Let's knock me up and give Archer a homie to roll with..."

(Archer sweetly observes Kennedy, whose mom is like a sister to me, which would almost make them cousins if we didn't live eight hours away... Poop.)

So we will. We are. Going to get pregnant. Soon. Summer, 2008: ~~Coming to a theatre near you~~. Or something. Ish. Yeah. Holy balls. That's, like, tomorrow.

Any words of ~~warning~~ encouragement from those versed in the two-baby thang would be much appreciated, i.e. how did you decide it was time to "go again"? What do you think is the ideal age difference? I'm all ~~fears~~ ears.

***

*heh.

**Trying to conceive